By Ben Waterhouse
The Willamette Week
November 23, 2008

Ask just about any frequent Portland theatergoer to name their favorite actors, and Todd Van Voris is likely to come up. A performer of extraordinary talent with a rich, resonant voice, Van Voris has been in more than his fair share of excellent productions in the last 10 years. He received a Drammy Award for outstanding achievement as an actor in a lead role for his performance in Betrayal at Imago Theatre in 2006. Among his other outstanding performances are Orson Welles in Orson's Shadow (an achievement I described in that year's Best of Portland issue) and Giles Mace in House and Garden at Artists Rep, Prologue in The Flu Season at Theatre Vertigo and the ensemble of Sometimes a Great Notion last spring at Portland Center Stage. This weekend he plays a cross-dressing gay man and a grandmother in Marc Acito and Cyntha Whitcomb's Holidazed at Artists Rep.

 

How long have you been in Portland?

I moved her September 10, 2001. A date I won’t forget.

 

Why did you move to Portland?

I had been living in Colorado with my girlfriend up in the mountains, and there were only a couple of small community theaters. And we both had theater backgrounds. We were loving Colorado, but the theater just wasn’t good, so we were looking for another place to live. We heard a lot of great things about Portland and it’s thriving theater scene, and about the beauty of the Pacific Northwest. We ended up moving here sight unseen, but moved out here for theater.

 

What was your hometown?

I was born in Tampa Florida.

 

 

You went to school in New York?

I went to NYU and studied at Playwrights Horizons .

 

Do you have a favorite role in Portland?

That’s a hard question—everything’s so different. I really liked doing Humble Boy at ART and Prologue in The Flu Season at theatre vertigo.

 

What was your first paid acting gig?

That was in New York, and I did a production of The House of Seven Gables , which was a new adaptation of the book, at HERE, down in the village. I figure I got $300 for that show. The whole time I was in New York I did about 25 show and my total earnings was about $375.

 

Do you act full time, or do you have a day job?

Just this past spring I quit my day job and am acting solely. That has a lot to do with Artists Rep offering me a place in the ensemble. It offered me a lot more time to do commercial work [Including Professor Plumb in a recent Oregon Lottery ad ] or voice-overs. I’m not raking in the dough by any stretch, but I can pay the bills.

 

Why should we see Holidazed this weekend?

Because you’ll laugh your ass off. I’m in drag in a few different forms—I’ll be Marilyn Monroe, I play a grandmother, and I do a drag cabaret routine. It’s a lot of fun. It’s an antidote to what’s going on in the world right now—There's a lot of just good, kneejerk fun.